I watched my companion slip a key into the lock. In a moment, the door stood ajar and I was peering down a steep flight of bare wood steps. Nodding at each other, we began to go down. We stopped short at the foot of the staircase. There was someone down there. "I thought you said he'd be sleeping," I protested, barely forming the words with my lips. "I'm sure he's asleep--but I didn't know he'd sleep down in the cellar. Apparently he didn't want to leave the machine even for a minute." Faint light entered the cellar through the small high windows. At first I saw nothing but the usual clutter of basement junk, but then in the far corner beyond the water tank I saw something which didn't belong. Make that two things. First, there was a man asleep on a cot. Second, there was this machine. For all I know of gadgets, it could have been a super-powered ham radio set. But a ham doesn't come complete with a glass-enclosed compartment big enough for a man. We stalked across the floor, Great-great pausing to pick something up. It was a length of steel pipe and with it he wouldn't have much trouble demolishing Angus Haney's untried time machine. This was it. This was my big day. Ten thousand bucks for almost nothing. I looked at the plump man sleeping on the cot in front of his invention. I felt no remorse. His adversary had made a better offer, so what the hell could he expect? All at once, things happened fast. Great-great stumbled over something and went reeling across the room. He was so surprised that he shouted, "But it doesn't belong there! I couldn't have tripped over it! It isn't in the restoration, I tell you." I didn't have time to point out that the restoration might not be quite accurate. Because the commotion woke up Angus Haney. He came springing off the cot--fully awake and alarmed in the split-second it took to open his eyes. "You'll have to kill me first!" he cried, moving in front of the machine and preparing to defend it like a mother lion defends her cubs. My companion ignored him, trying to work around behind him toward the time machine. I advanced straight for Angus Haney. "Be sensible, jack," I said, "and you won't get hurt. I'm bigger than you are and I know how to fight. I don't want to hurt you, but--" * * * * * He turned away from me, though, and lunged at Great-great. I dove at him in a street clothes version of the flying tackle and we went down together. Angus Haney was stronger than I had expected. Or maybe it wasn't that. Maybe he was fighting with desperation. Because the machine meant everything to him. Well, the ten grand wasn't exactly chicken feed to me, either. If Angus was going to fight back, I had to play rough. I clubbed him across the mouth with my right fist and his lips became a bloody smear, but he kept kicking and twisting and writhing to get at his relative, who stood poised now over the time machine with the length of steel pipe.